He smiled at the girl. She wasn’t anyone important, just another girl. Just another part of his façade. He could feel his smile turn slightly bitter, like milk that’s been left out on the counter for too long. That was him, wasn’t it? Someone who’s been left out too long, someone who needs two arms that could hold him together, instead of breaking him apart.

As he walked towards the tittering girl, he saw her out of the corner of his eye. She was, for once, not smiling. Or stumbling and tripping over her feet. Instead, her face was a mask. A perfect, unbreakable mask. Her clear blue eyes were not clear. They seemed flat and clouded, as though someone had polluted them with a toxin to terrible to name. And yet he could name that toxin, for his eyes were just as tainted with it. It was anger and sorrow, hatred and compassion, the urge to break and hurt and the ability to feel the guilt that comes after. And on her seemingly innocent face, it did not belong. It belonged on his face, in his gray eyes, but not in her eyes. Happiness and joy should be there, and nothing but that.

But before he could chase after her, like his heart wanted to, the girl was upon him, and he was gone to another pair of arms that could not hold him together, no matter how much he wanted them too.

Sometime later, it didn’t matter when; he was sitting by the lake with a bottle clasped in his hand. He couldn’t remember how it got there, or what was in it. But did it really matter? It helped for a little while, and that was what mattered to him. That was all that mattered. Making it through the next day without snapping, without breaking, without letting his perfect mask crack.

The noise startled him. He turned to find her standing there, somehow beautiful and full even though she should be ugly and hollow, like him. She had no smile. No mask. Just pain and anger and rage and hatred and thousands of emotions too complex to name.

She walked to him and took the bottle from his hands. She looked at it for an eternal second, and everlasting moment, and then she threw it into the lake. Sitting down by him, he was aware, too aware, of her clean scent, of her warmth, of her beauty. This was wrong. He should feel none of this. He was empty and ugly and hollow; all emotion but pain drained from his shell of a body.

There’s death. But somehow I can’t bring myself to it. I couldn’t hurt the people who love me.

Do you love them?

Sometimes.

Silence. The stillness and quiet is not peaceful, like one would expect. Instead, it is full of emotion. But some of these emotions are all wrong. They are not familiar. They don’t belong.

Do you feel like a monster? He breaks the silence with a question that falls from his lips as easily as a lie.

Yes. I feel empty. I feel like I should be dead, but I’m not.

She looks at her hands, so white and pale and fragile. Now that he looks at her, she is fragile. She may have been strong once, but now she is fragile. Breakable. To be handled with care.

I feel the same. Do you feel like you need someone to hold you together, but you can’t find them?

Yes. Do you feel that every set of arms that doesn’t work just breaks you farther apart?

Yeah. Why do you hide it from your friends?

They can’t know. They’d worry about me if I did. That’s why I have to smile and act clumsy. They’d never figure it out until I’m dead with a note by my side.

The thought of her dead like that causes him pain. A pain sharper and more agonizing than anything he’s experienced before. And he is no stranger to pain.

He looks at her and sees her dark gaze that says she could do it. She could take her life.

So why don’t you?

I can’t.

Why not?

She looks into the distance; but not just the distance. She looks into the future, into the past, into the world in which humans do not belong. She sees everything through those eyes.

When she answers, he can’t believe what she says. He feels as though it is wrong. And yet it is right, at the same time.

Because I love you.

You do?

Yes. Every time I saw you with another girl, I felt as though I could scream. I didn’t know what to think of it at first, but now I know.

How could you love me? I’m a monster. I’m ugly and hollow. You deserve someone who is full.

But they wouldn’t be right for me. Only you are.

When his eyes meet hers, he knows. He knows that she is right. And he knows something else, something that he has probably been ignoring for far too long.

You’re right.

Really? It’s been a while since I’ve been right about something like that.

I don’t know how you could not be right.

That’s good, isn’t it?

It’s very good.

When her arms go around him, he feels right. Whole. And it is a strange feeling, too. He hasn’t felt like this for a very long time. And, until now, he didn’t realize how much he missed it, this feeling of wholeness. She was right for him. She fit him like his missing half. And he realized she was.

A/N:

Whoa, where did that come from? Reviews, reviews, reviews? Oh yeah, and anyone who can spot any majorly screwed up grammar in this (other than the obvious), PUH-LEASE leave a review! Because I have to know what the heck this computer is talking about. Really, ever heard of something called a revised pronoun use (something like that)? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Believe me, if I had been the type, I woulda been scratching my head like an idiot. And favorite quotes are good too…please? You know you want to. The box is right there! Coz, you know, I don’t even know what to think of this, so someone should tell me what they think of it. And there WILL be two more chapters in this story (probably), so keep an eye out for that. I’m not going to say please, because that would just be pathetic (not that I’m not pathetic already or anything like that).